You might think that with the Hulu streaming service now up for sale, its biggest rival Netflix might be interested in purchasing the company. But oddly that doesn't appear to be the case. The Wall Street Journal reports that not only does Netflix have no interest in buying Hulu but Hulu's current owners also don't have any interest in selling the company over to Netflix.

What's the problem? Well the current owners of Hulu are also the parent companies of the Fox, ABC and NBC television networks and all three networks already have TV shows that are available for streaming via Netflix. According to the story, "selling Hulu to Netflix would reduce the number of suppliers for their content, destroying competition for their shows rather than increasing it."

Meanwhile, the sale of Hulu has now left "phase one" of its sale process meaning it has given presentations to various companies. Earlier this month it was reported that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were all interested in purchasing the company. Today's story has added two more companies that have expressed interest in Hulu: the web site retailer Amazon.com (which already owns and operated its own downloadable movie and TV service) and the satellite TV operator DirecTV.

The second phase of the Hulu sale is expected to start soon. That's when all potential buyers of the company look into Hulu's financial books and numbers. That includes the contract agreements that the three TV networks have to show their shows on Hulu.